Installing OpenVox Edit

OpenVox package downloads are currently sponsored by Overlook InfraTech. As of release 8.11, OpenVox is functionally equivalent to Puppet; the command names are the same, the configuration file paths are the same, etc. The major differences are in help text output, man pages, and so on. This means that you can continue to use all the commands, modules, tooling, etc that you’re used to, but at this time you cannot install both Puppet and OpenVox on the same system.

Uninstalling Puppet

We encourage you to try out OpenVox on a fresh test system, the way you would for any major system package. If you’d rather try it on an existing system or develop a migration process, then simply installing OpenVox will uninstall Puppet.

You do not need to purge configuration files because OpenVox will continue to use them as they are. However, before getting started on the migration you should strongly consider backing up the entire /etc/puppetlabs/ tree in case of accidents.

If you’re migrating from Puppet Enterprise you can use the puppet-enterprise-uninstaller script on each node as described in their docs.
If you’re using the all-in-one packages such as puppet-agent or puppetserver from the [apt|yum].puppet.com repos, simply remove these packages.
If you’re using distro provided packages, then you might have a bigger job. For example, if you’re using Debian packages, you may have several Puppet modules packaged as .deb packages that you’ll have to move to your Puppetfile. You might consider waiting until your distro packages OpenVox.
- If you do want to migrate now, then remove any puppet packages and dependencies you have installed using your distro tools.
  - Debian family
    - apt autoremove <packagename>
  - RedHat family
    - yum autoremove <packagename>
- You might also consider (carefully) cleaning up unused dependencies afterwards by running apt or yum autoremove without a package name.

You do not need to remove the [apt|yum].puppet.com repositories although the only thing you’ll be able to use them for going forward is installing historical Puppet releases.

Installation

First enable the repository, based on your Linux distribution. Choose the appropriate openvox8-release repo package from either of these locations and install it.

Debian family:
- apt.voxpupuli.org
RedHat family:
- yum.voxpupuli.org

(There are experimental builds for Windows at artifacts.voxpupuli.org/downloads/, and stable macOS builds at downloads.voxpupuli.org/mac)

Then install the packages you want.

Debian family
- apt install openvox-agent
- apt install openvox-server
- apt install openvoxdb
RedHat family
- yum install openvox-agent
- yum install openvox-server
- yum install openvoxdb

If you have backed up config files, then restore them now.

Managing OpenVox with OpenVox

Repositories

You can add the APT or YUM repositories with OpenVox - this should do the same thing as using the release packages:

include apt

$os_name = downcase($facts['os']['name'])
apt::source { 'openvox8-release':
  comment  => "OpenVox 8 ${os_name}${facts['os']['release']['major']} Repository",
  location => 'https://apt.voxpupuli.org',
  release  => "${os_name}${facts['os']['release']['major']}",
  repos    => 'openvox8',
  key      => {
    'name'   => 'openvox-keyring.gpg',
    'source' => 'https://apt.voxpupuli.org/openvox-keyring.gpg',
  },
}

include yum
$release=8
$os_name = $facts['os']['name'] ? {
  "Fedora" => "fedora",
  "Amazon" => "amazon"
  default  => "el",
}

yum::install { "openvox${release}-release":
  ensure => 'present',
  source => "https://yum.voxpupuli.org/openvox${release}-release-${os_name}-${facts['os']['release']['major']}.noarch.rpm"
}

Server/Client

You can manage OpenVox with several existing modules:

These modules currently default to installing packages named puppet*, so they will cause openvox* packages to be removed.

To install OpenVox, you can use this hiera data:

puppet::client_package: openvox-agent
puppet::server::package: openvox-server
puppetdb::puppetdb_package: openvoxdb
puppetdb::master::config::terminus_package: openvoxdb-termini

Note that this will cause errors if the OpenVox repositories are not available (using one of the methods above). If the OpenVox repositories are available, this will cause Puppet to be removed and OpenVox to be installed.

Foreman integration

Foreman installs the package puppet-agent-oauth. It provides the oauth gem for the Puppet Agent Ruby. The package depends on puppet-agent. The OpenVox packages don’t have a provides puppet-agent flag yet. As a workaround, tell the foreman module to not install the package:

---
foreman::providers::oauth: false

And manage the gem directly:

package { 'oauth':
  ensure   => 'installed',
  provider => 'puppet_gem',
}

Sponsorship

Many thanks to Lance and the OSU Open Source Lab. They do so much for the open source world and deserve far far more recognition for it.